


We're Lucky That We Slept (SDV Haley)

by RockWithItWriting



Category: Stardew Valley (Video Game)
Genre: 5+1 Things, F/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-19
Updated: 2019-02-20
Packaged: 2019-10-31 08:47:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17846222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RockWithItWriting/pseuds/RockWithItWriting
Summary: or the five times haley showed pike a photograph and the one time he showed her one





	1. .01

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* * *

Pike arrives in Pelican Town just like he left ZuZu: without grandeur or anybody really noticing. His beater bounces over stones and through grass that’s too high for a wheelchair in the early hours of a Spring morning. Gabbi is asleep beside him, her head cocked oddly back against the headrest. In a few hours the new dawn of sun will wake her up - if he doesn’t wake her up getting her situated in bed.

He had come weeks earlier to prepare but he still hadn’t built the much needed ramp. Perhaps it was because he wasn’t sure if Gabbi would even come with him: Pelican Town didn’t have a school much less sidewalks for her to explore. The farm, their Granddad’s old farm, was split open by a river and he’d built ragtag, makeshift bridges to connect all the separate islands of land. He owned them know, he thinks as he shuts the truck off. Pike owns the land and the dilapidated buildings on them.

He rubs a hand down his face, band aids and old scars catching on his skin. So much has changed in the past six months. He wonders if he’s the same man.

His body aches when he steps down from the cab, stretching. His back pops as he overlooks the overgrown fields cut by tumbling, bubbling water. The sun is just starting to warm the valley when he unloads the wheelchair from the back, the chrome cold under his calloused hands. He deposits it in the house, by Gabbi’s bed, before going back out for the girl herself. He reaches around to unbuckle her, startled when her arms wrap around his neck. “Ike?” Her voice is sugary and dripping in sleep. She doesn’t open her eyes, but he knows she knows that it’s him. Since the accident she just likes to feel his rumbling response, even if she can’t hear it.

He hums, not really saying anything, and scoops the girl into his arms. She’s light - too light he thinks - but deadweight with sleep. He gets her inside before the sun drops over the horizon to drip on their forms too much and tucks her into bed. She’s still in jeans and her shoes, but who really cares? She’s a kid - kids do that shit all of the time.

Pike’s a grown man and he still collapses into bed fully dressed from time to time. Usually after a long day at JoJa Headquarters but since Gabbi came into his life he hasn’t even had time to do that. It’s part of the reason he wanted to move to the farm: if he wants to kill himself in the city, even with Gabbi in his life, maybe the fresh air would make it better. Maybe the fresh air would make everything better.

Everything needs to get better. For Pike, for Gabbi.

For Mary-Bell and for Thomas.

(Though, Pike thinks with bile in his throat and phantom burn of vodka, nothing would ever get better for them ever again.)

Pike shakes his head as if his thoughts would fall out and then writes a note to Gabbi. She’s rarely ever awake before noon and he needs to go into town. The fridge is barren and barely whirring and his bed doesn’t have any sheets. The sheets that he did have are on Gabbi’s bed - he doubts the ten year old wants his old Transformers sheets. Not that he wants them, either, though. He leaves the note on her wheelchair - the first place she looks besides for her glasses - and locks the door behind him. There’s an itch of anxiety in his sternum, as always, but he knows that Gabbi will be okay. He worked longer hours typing away at that damn computer and she never got hurt.

He thinks the farm is a little bit different, though. If she got out, if her wheels got stuck in the grass… He looks toward the pile of rusted and antiquated tools that sit in front of the chill-box. He can see the scythe, there on the top, but the last time he used a scythe…

Pike shakes his head once more and climbs into his truck again.

The drive to the heart of Pelican Town takes nearly twenty minutes, nothing but the static-laden country station to grind on his nerves. He had searched as soon as he hit the Valley and ZuZu’s radio stations dropped off to nothing but white-noise, but nobody was broadcasting rock around here. No rock, no alternative, not even classic country. The new shit, dripping with fake twangs and songs about getting girls too drunk to drive and then fucking them in the back of the pick-up. That kind of country made Pike sick.

He pulls his truck into one of the available spots just outside of town. Pelican Town is so small they don’t have roads through the town, just cobblestone held together by determination and the weeds wiggling their way through the cracks. There’s only a few people milling about, and they’ve already turned their eyes to the strange dark green truck settled next to their familiar cars. He’s making sure his phone is turned up - Gabbi gets so nervous anymore and without a text to sate her he’d come home to pandemonium - and that’s why he doesn’t see her until it’s too late. Pike nearly screams when someone rapts on his window, clutching a hand to his chest and resisting the urge to slam his car door into whoever did such a thing.

Well, he can’t see who did it. He can see the top of a dandelion yellow head of hair and, every so often, a pair of eyes that look like two forget-me-nots settled in a bowl of peaches and cream. He steps from the truck and the woman is grinning like high beams at him, reaching only to his shoulder. “I’m Haley,” She says. He barely misses the way her eyes take in his clothing - it’s a ZuZu City designer that’s been out of commission for ten years. He got it at some thrift shop, but Haley probably thinks he got it from the designer. “Who are you? We don’t see many new people here. Especially dressed like that.”

Pike picks at the frayed edge of the white shirt. He shuts the door and pockets his phone, reaching out to shake Haley’s hand. Her other hand has a camera and she’s smiling politely, waiting for a response. “I’m Pike. Own the farm up the road, just moved in this mornin’.” His smile is thin and polite, but Haley’s whole face lights up. Her whole body looks electric and her face flushes even more, complimenting the matching blue of her tank top and necklace.

“Lucas Farms, right? Lewis said we might be getting new blood in town, but I was worried it was going to be some old goon that replaced Farmer Lucas. Boy, am I glad it’s you!” Pike chuckles, scratching the back of his neck. He’s no old goon, but he’s no spring chicken like Haley. “Can I take your picture? I have this project-” Haley abruptly snaps her mouth shut and flushes even harder, Pike following the color up her face with his eyes. “You probably don’t care.”

“I won’t push you to tell me, but sure. S’long as you don’t care that I’ve got bed-head and ratty clothes.” They both know the latter isn’t true, but the first sure is. Pike’s hair never laid down unless he put an obscene amount of hair gel in it.

“Of course I don’t. You look authentic, Pike. Here, lean against your truck and I’ll take the picture. I have a picture of every Pelican Town resident and most of the people who pass through. There- hold that pose and look away from me. Awesome!”

The shutter clicks and Pike steps away from his truck, observing the way Haley’s brows furrow together and her tongue pokes out just a little as she’s looking at the photo. “How’s it lookin’, Haley?” He steps around her to look at the photo of himself.

“With just a little color correction you’ll be looking more handsome than ever!” As they both flush and part ways, Pike can’t help but think he’s glad that Haley is the first person he’s met in this little podunk town, and his cellphone now has five contacts instead of four. He enters the general shop, greeted by the strange-yet-friendly face of the shopkeeper and thinks they might be okay. He might be okay. It might be all okay.


	2. .02

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> warnings: mentions of death, ptsd, grief, implied alcoholism

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* * *

They’re eating dinner when Gabbi waves to catch his attention. He’s halfway through a disgusting meal using the produce from JoJa, more than happy to put it down. The silence is distracting and the rain on the rooftop makes him sleepy. It’s only noon and Gabbi is looking… Mischievous.

 _I want to go to the Stardrop for dinner tonight,_ She signs, grinning in the way only children can, _I heard their pepper poppers are really good. That little girl down the lane, Jas, says her Uncle loves them._

 _The Stardrop though?_ His signs are one handed and lazy as he munches on the wilting spinach sandwich. _I can always drive, pick them up, and bring them back. We have an oven, you know._

_Do I? You never use it._

_I use it sometimes!_ He defends himself, grinning. _Fine, we can try. They don’t have a ramp, though. Not that I can say anything: I don’t have one here, yet. Besides, it’s a Saloon. If shit hits the fan, we’re leaving._

Gabbi nods vigorously and pushes back from the table, hands falling to her wheels to stabilize herself. _I’m going to go get dressed and put on makeup._

 _You’re beautiful,_ Pike signs back, _but if it makes you feel better, go on ahead._ He hears her tread bounce over the threshold to her room and then the door shut. Gabbi is more focused on her appearance than any other girl her age that he knows, not that he knows many ten year old girls. He always made sure she had the newest pallets though - she deserves the world and if he can only afford pallets of eye shadow or blush and that’s all she wanted: that’s what she would get.

Pike flashes the lights and then enters her room, eyes cast toward the floor just in case, until Gabbi catches his attention. _I’m going to work on clearing the farm some more to get wood for the ramp. Flash the porch light if you need anything._ She nods, already dressed and sitting in her vanity chair, hands on a set of fancy brushes he’d bought for nearly 300G. She waves him off and he shuts the door again, heading out to the porch. For spring it’s hot and he sheds his shirt as soon as he picks up the axe with gloved hands. Granddad had let the wood bloat with rainwater and crack with heat, leaving the opportunity ripe for splinters.

Pike can’t help the flash of imagination that hits him when he thinks about the wood fat and weighted with water. Is that what Thomas looked like at the bottom of the lake?

He cuts the thought down with a strike of his axe, like the pine tree in front of him was the reason his brother is dead. Every strike, every sharp cut of the metal into the sappy, weeping wood is a thought that he doesn’t have to have.

He fells the tree in nearly a half an hour - an hour faster than any of the other trees on the farm. “God damned coward,” He rumbles, “Cutting down a tree instead of facing your shit. Mary-Bell would beat your ass.” Silently he adds: And you would deserve it. He gets his pickaxe for the stump and then begins on slicing the trunk of the tree, each recoil of the axe covering him with the sap from the body, as if the tree itself was lamenting it’s own death.

Pike feels, suddenly, like he kills everything he touches.

He’s trying to wipe the stick off of his bare chest when the porch light flashes three times. _A visitor._ On the way back he pulls his shirt off of a limb, using it to wipe most of the sap from his chest, face, and hair. It leaves him looking like he either needs a bath or a good haircut; both of which are true. He bounds onto his porch and hears laughter from inside. He can pinpoint Gabbi’s loud, trilling laughter from a mile away but the other laughter is loud, boisterous, and a delicate shade of pink and green hues. He enters the home and finds Haley - who had become a fast friend over the week - dying laughing with Gabbi in the living room.

“Ike!” Gabbi says, gesturing to Haley, “She’s so funny - and she came by to invite us to the Stardrop for karaoke night!” He’s surprised that she’s laughing with Haley, let alone _talking_ with her, but nods and follows her lead as he pulls on his sap-ruined shirt. It sticks uncomfortably to his skin and he shifts.

“That’s a coincidence, we were heading that way in a few hours. Are you going to save a table for us?” Haley’s face lights up and she nods, hair bouncing around her head like a shaken snow globe.

“Sure!” Haley is considerate enough to make sure that Gabbi can still see her lips as she speaks, “Alex will be saving a seat for me, too, so I’ll let him know that you two are coming! Do you guys need any help? George has a hard time with the cobblestones on the edge of town by the parking lot sometimes, and Alex does the whole wheelchair gig everyday.”

“We’ll be fine, Haley, thank you.”

Haley leaves - but not before hugging the both of them - and dashes out the door. Gabbi wears a knowing grin on her face, but Pike just waves her off and heads to the shower. It’s hot, scalding, but it’s better than cold. He’d had to fix the water heater on several occasions when the water ran so cold it felt like the rain drops on his bare skin in some fucking forest somewhere. He had shaken it off but then he’d sworn off showers until Gabbi had complained and blocked his exit with her wheelchair, refusing point blank to let him leave.

She did let him leave to fix the water heater, though. She, too, was tired of freezing cold showers. Pike should have fixed it sooner: Gabbi had to sit in the ice cold water, at least he could _stand_ in it.

His shower was longer than anticipated. The water burnt his skin and he felt like he was boiling alive. Pike relished in it, the way pain pricked at his skin and the way that the pain in his joints and back from the tree seems to dissipate. He rolls his shoulders under the water and rinses the rest of the conditioner from his hair, taking special care to massage the scar on the back of his head. Every other scar gets the same treatment, too, and his tattoos as well. After the massage is over and his joints are done settling like an old home, he steps out, dries, and dresses.

By the time he parks his truck in the parking lot just outside Haley and Alex are waiting next to a… Well, a very _shiny_ compact car. It’s either Haley’s or… Well, Haley’s or Emily’s. Nobody else in Pelican Town can afford a car like that. The duo hits the back end of his truck at the same time he does - Pike towers over both of them. “Hey Haley. You must be Alex right?” He knows, because he’s Pike, but he would like to pretend that he hasn’t been observing everyone in town from the safety of his truck as he rumbles by.

“Yeah man, you’re Pike? Hales has been talking about you non- _stop_.” They hug in the way that men do - one hand clasped between them to prevent getting too close and slapping each other on the back like they were celebrating something - and Haley pops the tailgate.

“Is Gabbi excited?” Her voice is distorted by the huge grin she’s wearing. “She said she loves music. We were talking about how she listens to music even though she can’t technically listen to music.”

Pike steps in before Alex can make his move for the wheelchair. He hauls it down easily, popping it open and locking the seat in place. “She’s loved music since she was born. I remember one time, when we were all visiting Granddad just as she was learning to walk someone left the door open. We couldn’t find her for _ages_ , but Granddad put on one of his old line dancing songs and she came running from between the cornfields, covered in mud.” The trio share a laugh, a real laugh that’s hearty and from the belly, before Pike pushes the wheelchair to Gabbi’s door. The transition is simple: Pike picks her up and sets her in the chair, leaving her to adjust herself the way that she’s comfortable.

Just because she can’t feel anything below her thighs doesn’t mean she has to be uncomfortable.

He lets her set the pace when they hit the cobblestones. She’s struggling, but only a little bit. Pike’s glad that Haley and Alex aren’t laughing. God, it’s so important for Gabbi that she can independent but sometimes… Sometimes Pike wishes the accident had never happened, but what God awful thing would have happened in its stead? One awful bump later and Gabbi nearly spills sideways out of her wheelchair but Pike is there. He rights her and takes the reins, hands nothing but weight on the back to keep her stable.

 _Thank you,_ she signs. _I don’t want them to think I’m weak._

 _Not weak,_ he signs back, _You’re the strongest person I know. And I know a lot of strong people._

He tips her back to hop the few steps into the Stardrop and that’s when his world really comes alive in color. Music is pounding from speakers taller than Pike, Gus is sliding glasses to patrons who are, by the looks of it, already wasted. Even Shane is smiling, sort of, watching Jas and Vincent run Penny in circles. As soon as the door shuts behind the four of them Gabbi is begging, pleading, to go play with Jas and Vincent. They’re three years younger than her but they’re already working hard toward knowing how to sign so that Gabbi can stop working so hard.

He lets her roll away knowing that resident sober babysitter and teacher Penny will keep her safe. “Thanks for offering to help but Gabbi… Really doesn’t like to have others help her.” They find a seat and Emily, Haley’s older sister, sets down three large mugs of ale in front of them. With a wink toward Haley she dances away. It’s when he swallows his third sip without coming up for air that the wink is because both Haley and Alex are only twenty years old. Legal drinking age is still months away for them but for Pike it’s long been in the ground. Suddenly he feels uncomfortable. The people in his unit had all been around his age and now he’s here, sitting in a saloon with two twenty year olds shooting the shit like he’s their age. He swallows the rest of his ale like he lives on it.

He really shouldn’t be drinking at all, but doesn’t he _deserve_ it?

“Are you listening, Pike?” Haley teases, prodding his bicep. He flexes and then flushes, shaking his head.

“No, I was just thinking about how young you two are. Real, hah, spring chickens.” Alex grins, tapping his glass against Pike’s. “Not that I can’t keep up.”

“Oh,” Haley giggles, fishing her camera out of her bag and pressing buttons rapidly, “Oh, no, I’m sure that you can keep up. I’m sure that you can outdrink Alex, at least.” Said man groans and Pike snickers into his drink.

Haley passes the camera over to him and the picture is blurry - he’s sure she’ll fix that later - but it’s clearly Alex and he’s clearly naked. He’s running through the woods with his jacket tied around his waist and Pike can barely see the beer in his hand.

He chokes on his drink, laughter bringing tears to his eyes. “Oh, my God.”

“Haley, you have got to stop showing people that photograph! It’s embarrassing and what if it gets out?” Alex whines, “The Tunnelers will never put me on their team!”

“Have you seen some of the shit the Tunnelers get up to when they win a game, Alex? You’ll fit right in.” For a moment, a brief moment, the three grin at each other but then Gabbi rolls up, slamming into the table.

 _Pike, Pike!_ She’s signing frantically, _They’re about to start Granddad’s line dance! Can we do it, can we?_ Perhaps he’s feeling her frantic, childish energy or maybe it’s the ale that’s really stronger than he’s used to but he nods. In one swift movement he’s scooped Gabbi up and she’s hugging him like a jetpack. They head for line that’s forming; it’s mostly old-timers, those who knew Old Man Lucas: Gus, Clint, George, and Lewis. George, of course, is in his own wheelchair but just because his legs don’t work doesn’t mean he can’t join in on the spins and the jerks in the song.

When they’re all lined up and the music is playing loud enough that it rattles Pike’s teeth in his head, the dance begins. It’s like an old friend the way that it holds him, warms him from the inside out. He can hear Gabbi laughing in his ear, clutching to the front of his shirt as they dance together. Pike can’t remember the last time he danced his Granddad’s dance or the last time the world lit up around him, colors swirling through the air with the old, familiar music of his childhood. He’s living life and life is swirling around him like those psychedelic movies he used to watch with his mother, late at night, when Thomas was already moved out of the house. He knows Haley is snapping pictures, shooting the shit with Alex and drinking and just living a better life than he was living at twenty.

He hopes that when Haley prints out the photos, or does something with them, that there’s one of him dancing with Gabbi in there. He wants this moment: merry and drunk and dancing with the old men in the town that knew his old man and his old man, too. When the song is over and Gabbi is seated back in her wheelchair Pike collapses into a chair and leans into Haley. He’s drunk on… Well, that ale and happiness.

He turns his head into Haley’s shoulder and laughs so hard his eyes crinkle and his face flushes. And, well, if Alex takes a picture of it he takes a picture of it. Pike’s not really sure if he does or not.


	3. .03

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> requested by: my hyperfixation  
> word count: 1.9k  
> warnings: mentions of death, ptsd, grief

_or the five times haley showed pike a photograph and the one time he showed her one pt. 3_

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* * *

 

The damn farm might kill him. It really might. Spring is hotter than it has any right to be, the sun thick and heavy like the dew settled on his crops. Pike wishes that he could tan; if his skin is _already_ dark would he even notice if it got darker with the work? He was certainly losing the fat he’d harbored in his mid-twenties in favor for a more muscular build.

It reminded him of boot camp, in a way.

The hard labor, the constant need for something to be done somewhere. He likes it. It works for him, in his head, and it works for Gabbi. She has school all day, and when she doesn’t have school she has a book that she wants to read or a picture she wants to draw, and then they come together for dinner and commiserate before bedtime.

It starts again in the morning, but Pike can’t help but feel lonely.

Ever since the night at the bar his world had been a swirling of dull browns of farm animals crooning in the sunrise, dark blues of the clanging of metal against rock he needed to remove, the muted yellow of water hitting his plants. He hadn’t found a color like Haley’s laugh or the psychedelic mix of colors that came with everyone’s joy and dancing to his Granddad’s song. He misses it, he realizes one day while he’s tilling a new patch for spring onions. It’s why he’s lonely: if Gabbi wasn’t around others who couldn’t sign she didn’t speak - more power to her - but he lives his life in silence because of it.

Stupid fucking military movers lost all of his tapes when he’d hit Ferngill soil again but it was his fault. Taking _tapes_ to Gotoro? What is he, some bougie city man? Who does that? Why did his superiors let him do that? The point is: Pike has nothing to listen to. When Pike has nothing to listen to he’s in his head too much and then he loses it. He loses it and tills the same spot in his soil four times in a row.

“Damnit Lucas, you’re going batty.” He mutters to himself, leaning on his hoe. It’s not even noon but his body aches and he wants a drink. That’s nothing new. But it’s back, renewed with a vigor. He’s been on the farm for months now with nothing to show for it besides a few new friends (if you could call Haley and her rag-tag bunch friends, or call Shane a friend when he acted like that) and a taste for the local ale. “Losing it, man. Keep it together, like the old days.”

When Haley finds him, rumbling up from the South in a beat up, old, blue truck he’s fishing old, rusted metal out of the river. Something to give him a break from the heat of the sun on his sweating back. He still had a shit load of work to do, but he welcomed the sight of his two best friends in Pelican Town. He slipped on the embankment climbing up to their truck where it idled on one of the old roads he’d uncovered on the land and hopped the fence. “Shane, Hales. Ain’t you a sight for sore eyes today.” They both clasp him in a hug after he’s mopped down with his shirt. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“There’s a competition,” She grins like a cheshire cat and he returns it, thinking about how pretty her voice looks when it swirls in his vision. (Pike will never let himself think it, but it’s almost as pretty as she is.) “For 10,000G and it’s for JoJa employees.”

Pike swivels his eyes over to Shane, cocking an eyebrow at the man who’s retreating into his hoodie and staring at the ground. “Entering that commercial competition? It finally hit the Valley, huh. Got any film experience?” Shane looks surprised that Pike knows what the competition is, but once upon a time Pike’s job was to pick winners for that competition. He knows how it worked, what won, and what JoJa said that wanted versus what they _really_ wanted. He has an inkling that they’re there to enlist his help and he’ll give it all he’s got, just like he’s given everything else. He had bonded with Shane faster than anyone in the town: they were two fish in the same bucket. Shane had lost his best friend and then gained Jas. He was another man who knows what loss tasted like on the back of your tongue in a bar, knowing you’d have a baby soon. Shane knows the fear of having a baby, except without nine months of warning.

Pike doesn’t wish it on anyone, but in some sick way he wishes someone in Pelican Town had lost everything that he had: he wants someone who matches in loss and in pain but there’s nobody. Shane is the closest person to what Pike’s been through, and the man deserves the world.

“Sure am. Figured I’d break out the camera again.” They’d had conversations about that camera, “Haley and I were talking about it: she’ll help with editing, Clint and Emily are going to read lines for me. Would you be willing to help?”

“Hell yeah, man,” Pike doesn’t even have to think twice, “I used to grade those things and then pass the best on to the higher ups, Need help coming up with a script? I’m sure I can slip away from the farm to help you figure out what you want to say.” Haley turns and slaps Shane on the arm, bouncing on the balls of her feet.

“I told you, Shane. We’ll all help you. Pike, even Sam said he and Sebastian and Abigail would give him royalty free backing music! Shane here just doesn’t believe this whole town loves him.”

The trio climbs into Shane’s truck, Pike’s large body taking up most of the backseat. He leans forward, grinning as Shane avoids his eyes. “It’s true, we all do. Shane is a master of chickens and cows. And ale, but we’re working on that; I’ll usurp him eventually.”

“Psh, if you say so.”

* * *

 

“Did you get your tattoos in ZuZu?” Haley asks as they lay together, eyes on the ceiling. The room is dark, it’s nearly silent except for breathing and soft shifting on the covers, and Pike has never felt more comfortable with someone who wasn’t Thomas, Mary-Bell, or Gabbi. He’s thinking about that, head a fog of Shane’s moonshine and Emily’s hearty, homemade meat pies, that he doesn’t really remember that Haley asked a question until she asks it again.

“Yeah,” He answers thickly, “Most of ‘em, anyway. Spent most of my savings on ‘em before I got Gabbi. Had to work my ass off at JoJa to make up for it.”

“Sucks.”

“Yeah.”

The silence envelops them and Pike is hyper aware of everything that’s happening. He always is, but especially more around Haley. They’re laying in his bed, shoes still on, and they’re drunk. Haley is twenty. He’s pushing thirty. She smells like rosehips and jasmine. She sounds like pinks and greens all blending together. Their bodies touch from the shoulders to the joint of their ankles and it feels hot, like he’s relaxed into the spa’s water up North.

Pike shouldn’t feel like this.

Pike feels a lot of things that he shouldn’t feel lately, and they all roll back around to Haley. He had briefly thought about courting Leah, but she was focused on her art and he respects that. He also respects that she moved her to get away from something, and she didn’t need _some_ bumbling, too-tall-for-his-body farmer ruining the peace she’d found. But Haley? Haley didn’t seem to have anything like that.

 _It’s because she’s so young,_ he chastises himself. _Too young. Naive, new, like a flower that’s bloomed but hasn’t weathered a storm yet. You’re the storm, dumbass, and you leave flowers wilted and muddy because you’re a tornado. A mess, a piece of shit with metaphorically dirty hands._ He’s so in his head he doesn’t realize when Haley shifts closer, ever closer, and he’s not sure she can get any closer but she tried. She’s laying on her side and her hand falls to his chest, phone clutched loosely.

“Remember when we first met, and I told you I had a project? I didn’t think that you’d care then - it’s a pipe dream of mine that nobody really thinks is going to happen - but it’s happening. A publishing company picked me up, we’re contracted for another year until I’m published but you’re my best friend, Pike. I want you to be the first person to know.” She opens the phone and then the gallery, swiping through abstract photos of bodies he doesn’t totally recognize and posed photos of the townspeople and tourists, “I’ve been cataloging the people of Pelican Town since I was a little girl and writing excerpts about them because it’s so easy to forget people once they’re gone. I used to think this was just a stupid, shitty little town but it’s so much more than that. It’s a _community_ and I don’t want anyone to be lost to new generations and bad memory.” He smiles when he sees his own pictures in the amalgamation of a community Haley was storing on her little device. He turns his head toward her and he’s surprised when she’s so… Close. She’s so close and so _alive_.

He can see errant glitter from the lipgloss she had been wearing before they started drinking, smell the crazy-high proof moonshine on her breath. God, they’re both so drunk, but Pike can’t stop fucking looking at her and the way her hair falls around her face and the way her eyes shine like the fucking moon if you painted it blue and her lips. Pike keeps looking at her lips.

He has no right to.

He’s just some old man who moved to a farm after getting his ass handed to him in Gotoro and she’s young and pretty and untouched by the war raging to the South. He isn’t going to be the one to introduce her to that hell - no way, no how, no sir. Except, well, maybe he is.

Because Haley moves her hand from his chest to his face and she kisses him. Oh, God, she presses her lips to his and they’re so soft. Pike hasn’t felt soft in years. Hasn’t been kissed in years. He doesn’t know what to do but he sure as shit knows that he can’t leave her hanging. It takes balls to lay in someone’s bed, drunk as a skunk, and kiss them without knowing. Well, maybe she did know. Is he that obvious?

After kicking himself in the ass to kick-start his brain, he covers her hand with his own and kisses back. It’s like a surge of energy through the both of them from their toes to their eyes and Haley sighs. She sighs. She _sighs_ and it wakes Pike up in a way that’s he hasn’t been awake in a long time. _Fuck,_ he thinks, _I really like Haley. I really shouldn’t like Haley._

When she smiles at him, eyes dropping as she falls asleep, he thinks that maybe it’s okay if she likes him back.


	4. .04

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> warnings: mentions of death, car accidents, and starvation, mention of blood

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Haley comes bounding his house one week after their kiss. She doesn’t even remember it, even though Pike replays it when she smiles at him and when she smiles the same way at Alex. She’s grinning, because of course she is, and already thirty seconds deep chattering about something when he tunes back in. She looks amazing, not that she always doesn’t, and her hair is pulled back today.

Pike understands. Spring is giving way to summer faster than he cares to admit.

“-Are you listening to me, Ike?” That stupid fucking nickname doesn’t sound like it should coming from Haley. He really does prefer his full name, but she looked so excited when she first called him Ike, he let it slide. And continues to let it slide, “I said I have a meeting in ZuZu today with my publisher!”

“That’s _amazing_ , Hales,” He grins, really grins, because he’s bursting with pride. It’s tinged with something like regret because she remembers telling him, calling him her best friend, but not the kiss they shared. Not the night wrapped around each other, sweating under the blanket as they slept. “I’m so proud of you.” He puts down the lunches he was packing and surrounds her in a hug, all too big for her small frame but she hugs back. No half-assed one arm hugs from a girl like Haley. Once she told Pike that her mother taught her better, but he’d be willing to be his spring fucking crop it was Emily. That girl is a saint. “Where’s it at? The publishing district in North End?”

As they part, her face falls. “I wish it was North End. Nobody there would return my calls or my manuscript. I’m sure glad that Sebastian helped me copyright it - no, the company is in South Square.”

The pear in his hand, that’s about to find a home in a lunch box, oozes over his clenched fingers, liquid running and as if it were alive and mourning it’s own death. The juice hits hit counter with a _tap-tap-tap_ but nobody can hear it over his staccato breathing, the way his eyes widen and he looks at Haley without really looking at her. He’s looking past her, seeing something that she’s never known.

In a flash, it’s all over.

The pear is tossed into the garbage can and he’s washing his hands at the sink, face impassive. “South Square is a rough neighborhood, you sure you wanna go there alone?” _Don’t sound desperate,_ he begs, _don’t do it._ “I’m headin’ to ZuZu today, too. Gabbi Grace has an audiologists appointment at eleven. I could take you.” _Look impassive, look like you don’t care, even though every atom in your body is riddled with anxiety, anger, and desperation._

Haley has her eyebrows furrowed, looking at the weeping peach in the garbage can. “Sure,” She says slowly, softly, because Pike has never been angry, not around her. “I would love that. Doesn’t your truck only have two seatbelts, though? Where will I sit?” Pike wipes his hands dry on his jeans, covered and dirty from watering the crops that morning. After he zips up the lunch boxes he leans back against the counter, crossing his ankles and his arms. He wonders if he’s making up the way her eyes trace his bicep as it flexes underneath his t-shirt.

“Two seat belts are in the middle and passenger seats, Hales. I bungee-cord myself in.” Then, softer, “I won’t let you get hurt. South Square ain’t what it used to be, not anymore.” It would be a good statement if it hadn’t have gotten worse over the years. Pike was raised in South Square with dreams of North End but both places weren’t good. Not like Riverbend to the East, or West Park. Those are the safe quadrants of ZuZu, where everyone looks the same, works the same, lives in the same house, and car accidents don’t happen. Or, if they do, people don’t die.

But South Square and North End? There’s nothing but death there. Kids starving in South Square, the _pop-pop-pop_ of gang violence and the soft slice of air during knife fights. It’s poor-town, hobo villages popping up in the various parks and woods around the most crime-riddled place in ZuZu. If you have a car in South Square it’s a beater and you’re probably desperate enough to drive it through a Quick’N’Go for some quick cash. North End is the same, except those are the rich kids with fancy cars and good schools but their parents sell smack for that shit. Pike lived there with Thomas after they graduated high school, waiting for a letter from the Ferngill Republic and their enlistment papers.

Those kids with fast cars and knives liked to race their stupid, leased cars until they cut the wheel too hard and found themselves wrapped around a pole or roasting alive or drowning at the bottom of the river that split ZuZu like a fat, warbling fence.

Pike wonders if Haley knows any of this. She had never lived in ZuZu, not really, but if she had he’s sure her parents would have put her up in Riverbend. They’re loaded, he knows that, off travelling the Ferngill Republic while their daughters watch their cozy little house in the Valley. Haley takes him in, watches him as he processes what’s happening in his head. She had complained about that once, drunk and playing arcade games with Pike in the saloon. _I never know what’s happening up here,_ she complained, running a hand through his hair, _like, ever since you showed up in Pelican Town with those gnarly bruises and tattoos, I’ve never understood what’s happening in your head._

“Yeah,” She finally breaks the silence, giving Pike one of her award-winning smiles, “I would love that. Is _Gabbi Grace_ awake yet?” She mocks his paternal nickname for the girl and he knows she has the wrong idea about him and Gabbi, “I want to do her makeup this morning.” He nods, reminding her to flash the lights before entering and goes back to putzing around in his kitchen. He packs another lunch, focusing on his movements rather than his thoughts.

Once his kitchen is military clean he heads to his room to get dressed and shave. Gabbi and Haley are giggling away, chattering in the former’s bedroom and he pauses into listen and smile sourly. They were better fit for friends, Pike thinks, not for him to date Haley for the long run.

He shakes the thought away, stripping from his shirt and dirty pants to settle in front of his mirror with a straight razor and a bowl of lather. He works in silence, apart from the sound of the razor against his skin. It’s good, it’s calming, it reminds him of shaving in the forests of Gotoro. He enjoys it and the pull of his skin under his fingers as he shaves away the hint of a beard. Pike’s attention is on his face, so he doesn’t notice Haley leaning against the door until she shifts on her feet.

Then he notices her.

She notices the rush of red appearing on his chin, puddling in the white lather and then running down his neck. “Fuck!” He curses, jerking away from the razor and then clamping a hand over the cut. Haley’s hands cover her mouth and she rushes forward, eyes wide.

“Oh, my _God_ I am so sorry, Pike.” She pulls his hand away, taking in the pink foam running down his neck, staining his chest. “Shit, I didn’t know what you were doing. I didn’t know it was dangerous. I just wanted a picture.” As Haley uses his old shirt to wipe away the lather to see the cut Pike holds back a wince. Not because it hurts, no, because that shirt is filthy. He’ll have to clean his cut again when Haley’s not around. He doesn’t blame her, she just doesn’t know. “You just looked so peaceful, so at ease. I haven’t seen that out of you when you weren’t _drunk_ and I just wanted to remember it, because you look so different and I know that you don’t want to tell me _why_ you’re like this or whatever or why you have the _scars_ and I know you can see them in the picture but I’m not even going to _publish_ it and-”

She’s rambling, and Pike finds it unbearable adorable. Her face is flushed and tears are pooling at the edge of her lower lids, obscuring the blue eyes that hold so much emotion. Pike can remember comparing them to flowers what feels like one million years ago. and he smiles. “Are you going to show me the picture?”

“I’m- _What_?”

“The picture. I want to see it. If it’s good, all is forgiven, but if I’ve cut myself over a bad photograph…” He’s teasing, smirking at her and she flushes down her neck. The picture is good, he already knows this, but he holds the shirt over the wound anyway, not even looking at the photograph when Haley presents it. He nods and then tucks his hand around the back of her neck, hair from her ponytail draping over the scarred back, and pulls her in to kiss him. They slot against each other and Haley sighs, just like that night. But she doesn’t pull away.

Haley, _sober_ Haley, Haley that’s going to ZuZu to get her _fucking book published_ kisses Pike back. She holds his face in her hands. She backs up and rolls to her tiptoes when he stands, towering over her. She lets his hand find her hip, tugging her body toward his. Softness meets the rugged, hard planes of his body and he’s sure that he’s gone and died because Haley is kissing him.

And Haley is enjoying it.

And Haley is grinning at him when she pulls back for air, still in his arms.

And Haley is giggling, pressing her flushed face into his chest.


End file.
